Organisms as a whole are tightly coupled systems. Their function and construction needs to be understood in an integrated manner. Just like opening theh hood of a car and playing with the sparkplug alone does not tell you how a car runs, biological systems need to be understood in ecological, evolutionary and system contexts. With this vision of integrated biology in mind, we are studying several non-model simple organisms (living fossils) to tackle basic questions about origins of multi-cellularity, regeneration and explaining complete behavior of an organism from basic laws of physics.
Projects
- Soft x-ray microscopy
- Capillary ratchets
- Evolution of flight
- Metamorphosis